TORONTO — A group of activists called on the Ontario government to ban the practice of stationing uniformed police officers at high schools across the province after the Toronto District School Board voted to permanently end the program.
The decision by the country’s largest school board to scrap the controversial School Resource Officer program was met with loud applause Wednesday night. The vote came a little more than a week after TDSB staff released a report recommending the elimination of the program because it left some students feeling intimidated or uncomfortable.
Phillip Morgan, a member of Education Not Incarceration, called the decision “a huge victory” that has been 10 years in the making.
“It has been years of writing to trustees, teach-ins, public deputations and various other strategies to get the TDSB to listen to folks who have found themselves most harmed by the SRO program,” Morgan said Thursday at a news conference with several other community organizations.
“We know that with the TDSB there has been a history of racism and discrimination, we know that with policing in Toronto there is also a history of racism and discrimination, so the folks who find themselves at the intersection of these two institutions through the SRO program have been particularly affected.”
Morgan said there is still work left to do because the program is in place at the Toronto Catholic District School Board and other school boards in the province.
“This is an important first step, but not the last step,” he said.
In an email Thursday, Toronto Catholic District School Board spokeswoman Emmy Szekeres Milne said the SRO program will continue to operate in its 21 schools across the city.